Jeannie Zandi

January marks the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which is why tens of thousands of antiabortion activists are choosing, as they have every year since 1974, such a chilly time of year to travel to Washington D.C. for the March for Life, a gathering that has grown steadily since its inception to become the largest pro-life event in the world. As they’ve done for decades, march participants will use the leading pro-life event to express the leading pro-life idea, that life begins at conception; the notion is jauntily expressed by the theme of this year’s march, “Unique from Day One.”

For those of us who work to reduce abortion stigma, such claims can be frustrating and send us in intellectual circles. We know that we are neither evil nor confused, and that our experiences of abortion have been marked by wisdom and care. And yet how can we prove that abortion doesn’t end a life? How can we define “life,” or refute someone else’s definition of when a human life begins?